Bad Hugh eBook

“Willie, Willie,” called Adah from a distant
room, where she was looking for him. “Willie,
Willie,” and as the silvery tone fell on the
doctor’s ears he started suddenly.

“Who is that?” he asked, his heart throbs
growing fainter as his mother replied: “That
is Mrs. Markham. Singularly sweet voice for a
person in humble life, don’t you think so?”

The doctor’s reply was cut short by the entrance
of Anna, and in his joy at meeting his favorite sister
and the excitement at the breakfast which followed
immediately, the doctor forgot Rose Markham, who had
succeeded in capturing Willie and borne him to her
own room. After breakfast was over he went with
Anna to inspect the rooms which Adah had fitted for
his bride. They were very pleasant, and fastidious
as he was he could find fault with nothing. The
carpet, the curtains, the new light furniture, the
armchair by the window where ’Lina was expected
to sit, the fanciful workbasket standing near, and
his chair not far away, all were in perfect taste,
and passing his arm caressingly about Anna’s
waist he said: “It’s very nice, and
I thank my little sister so much; of course, I am
wholly indebted to you.”

“Not of course. I furnished means, it is
true, but another than myself planned and executed
the effect,” and sitting down in ’Lina’s
chair, Anna told her brother of Rose Markham, so beautiful,
so refined, and so perfectly ladylike. “You
must see her, and judge for yourself. Can’t
I think of some excuse for sending for her?”
she said.

And so the golden moment was lost, and Adah was not
sent for, while in his bridal rooms the doctor sat,
trying to be interested in all that Anna was saying,
trying to believe he should be happy when ’Lina
was his wife, and trying, oh, so hard, to shut out
the vision of another, who should have been there
in his own home, instead of lying in some lonesome
grave, as he believed she was, with her baby on her
bosom. Poor Lily!

It was a great mistake he made when he cast Lily off,
but it could not now be helped. No tears, no
regrets, could bring back the dear little form laid
away beneath the grassy sod, and so he would not waste
his time in idle mourning. He would do the best
he could with ’Lina. He did believe she
loved him. He was almost sure of it, and as a
means of redressing Lily’s wrongs he would be
kind to her.

And where all this while was Adah? Had she no
curiosity, no desire to see the man about whom she
had heard so much? Doubtless she had, and would
have sought an occasion for gratifying it, had not
the rather too talkative Pamelia accidentally overheard
the doctor’s remark concerning “smart
waiting maids,” and repeated it to her, with
sundry little embellishments in tone and manner.
Piqued more than she cared to acknowledge, Adah decided
not to trouble him if she could help it, and so kept
out of his way, by staying mostly in her own room,
where she was busy with sewing for Anna.